DARK CLOUDS discolouring the skies on the morning of October 23, 1993 should have been an omen for what was to come later that night, beginning at a dance in Lionel Town, Clarendon and ending with the horrific slaughter of 22-year-old Rajhnie Williams and his two teenaged companions.

At a trial in the No 1 Home Circuit Court in 1997 – after the first trial in the Manchester Circuit Court presided over by Justice Pitter in 1995 had ended with a hung jury – Senior Puisne Judge Clarence Walker (now retired Appeal Court judge) appropriately described the murders as “a heinous crime committed with unfathomable, unspeakable savagery”.

The judge was addressing 35-year-old Dwight Fletcher, o/c “Deon”, mechanic of Rocky Point, Clarendon, just before passing the sentence of death upon him for murdering Williams, a businessman of May Pen, Clarendon; Georgia Shaw, 19, and 14 year-old Racquel Fearon.

Also convicted for the triple murder was Whyette Gordon, o/c “Issy” barber of Rocky Point, Clarendon, whom the judge ordered detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure because he was born on December 26, 1975 and was, therefore, under the age of 18 years when the offence was committed. But the judge also ordered that Gordon should not be eligible for parole until he had served 30 years in detention.

A third accused – Edwey Watson, o/c ‘Sam’ and ‘Deportee’ who was described by the police as a 40-year-old recent deportee from the US – had been arrested and charged along with Fletcher and Gordon in connection with the kidnapping and murder of the three deceased. All three accused later escaped from the Mandeville Police lock-up. Fletcher and Gordon were quickly recaptured, but in a shoot-out, Watson was shot and killed, according to police reports.

The Crown’s case, as presented by the then Snr Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry, QC (now retired DPP and assistant vice-president, legal affairs at the University of Technology) was that Williams, Shaw and Fearon were kidnapped after they left a dance at Don Juan Lawn in Lionel Town about 11:00 pm on October 23, 1993. Following an islandwide search, Williams’ headless corpse was found off the Shooters Hill main road in Manchester on November 3, 1993. To this day, the head has not been found. Both his hands were also chopped off.

The remains of Fearon and Shaw were found in bushes at Gutters, on the Manchester/St Elizabeth border on November 22, 1993, and when found, Shaw too was headless.

Then on the last Thursday in December 1993, a dog rummaging around, uncovered a human skull, believed to be that of Georgia Shaw, at Gutters, St Elizabeth. The skull, found about half-mile from where the skeletal remains of Shaw and Fearon were discovered, had gunshot wounds to the forehead.

Investigators were led to the skeletal remains of the deceased by one of the three men held in connection with their disappearance from the dance. Two of whom reportedly gave cautioned statements confessing to the murders. The cautioned statements were admitted in evidence and read to the jury following voir dire proceedings.

And the court heard from Mandeville Flying Squad inspector, LE Campbell (now retired Sr Supt) who made the arrests, that when he confronted Edwey Watson, o/c ‘Sam’, o/c ‘Deportee’ with the cautioned statements confessing to the crime, given by Fletcher and Gordon, Watson’s comment was: “Dem can gwaan talk, but Mr Campbell, mi no have nutten fe tell yu, yu know!” Because there were no eye witnesses to the murders, the two cautioned statements provided much of the material to buttress the Crown’s case.

But there were other witnesses, such as Marcia Harvey o/c ‘Toosie’ who was a passenger in a taxi travelling also to the dance. The two accused and a man known as “Sam” who was described as a ‘deportee’, were also in the taxi. She saw the three deceased arrive at the dance in a green Honda Integra motorcar licensed 8559 AR driven by Rajhnie Williams.

Evidence was that about midnight rain stopped the proceedings and Fletcher and Gordon, Rajhni, Georgia and Racquel returned to the Honda motor-car. “Sam” also went into the Honda motor car at the same time. Williams and the two young ladies were never seen alive again.

Colin Burgess, olc “Sooksie” residing at Salt Spring in the parish of St James, testified that on the morning of October 24, about 8:30 am, the Honda motor car with three men came to his home. Fletcher whom he knew before, asked to be allowed to leave the car there. Burgess said he refused. Fletcher identified the other two men to the witness as Gordon and ‘Sam’, a deportee.

At the trial, Burgess identified Gordon as one of the men who had come there with Fletcher. The witness said he asked Fletcher how he had come by the car and Fletcher replied “last night him and him friends them juck down a p… h… in a Lionel Town in Clarendon and take it.” Burgess said he told Fletcher: “You is a wicked r… c… You shouldn’t do it.” Fletcher told him that “Deportee” was the one who did it.

Burgess further testified that Fletcher drove away the car with the two men who had come along with him but later returned to tell a resident of the house, one Mr Nick, that he had heard something on the news and the car “get bait up”. He would drive the car up the lane and park it and take some other transportation in. The witness reported the matter to the police after hearing the report on the news of the disappearance of Rajhnie Williams and the two young ladies.

Gordon’s statement taken on November 22 disclosed that after Rajhni Williams and the two young ladies came out of the dance which ended permaturely, they walked to the parked car. Sam “jucked” Rajhni with a gun in his side and said “get inside the car”. Fletcher ordered the girls into the back seat of the car. In the front seat was Fletcher, who drove the car, and with him Sam and Rajhni. Gordon went in the backseat with the two girls. Rajhni took off his ring and chain and gave it to Gordon and asked him not to hurt him.

They drove towards Mandeville and turned off on a road to Kirkvine. Sam told Fletcher to stop the car. He told Rajhnie that he was going to take him up the road so that he could get a vehicle to take him to May Pen. ‘Sam’ walked up the road with Rajhnie and retumed without him in about five to six minutes. The girls were asking where they would be let off to get something to take them back to May Pen. Gordon was conversing with Racquel.

“I was talking to her telling her that I liked her and that I would like to have sex with her which she accepted under one condition, that is, not to let anyone else have sex with her, which I know I could not prevent because ‘Sam’ was the one who was in control of everything because he was the one with the firearm. I had sex with her. I told her to put on her dress while I went back down to the car leaving Sam and Deon with the two girls. That’s where the body is disposed. That is in Santa Cruz. .Where I had sex with the girl, that is where Sam shoot the two girls, one bullet each to their heads. Sam took off the clothes off the two girls. The clothes were left same place. After that, we get back into the car and drove out to Montego Bay.

“I just remember something that I must put in. The money that we accumulate from Rajhnie which is $3,100, all of us got $1,000 each and Deon put the extra $100 under the glove compartment of the car. While we were approaching MoBay, Deon hit a white Toyota Corolla car. The driver of the car said he had to get some money for the damage to his car.

Deon tumed to me and told me I must give the driver $500 which I had to do. We then get back into the car and drove off to Montego Bay.”

The narrative records travels to Montego Bay and attempts to get the car sold as well as to Hanover where the car was left. There was a further attempt to sell the car in Montego Bay and then they took a vehicle back to Clarendon. Further unsuccessful efforts were made to sell the car in Montego Bay and then they decided to drive the car to Kingston. On the way to Kingston, the car got punctured in St Catherine. They drove up to a little track and wiped off fingerprints. They slept in a bus stop and next morning travelled to Linstead and from there to Kingston then back to Clarendon.

Fletcher’s cautioned statement went on to tell of an accident with a Toyota Corolla motor car and of going to Salt Spring. It narrrated also the attempt to sell the car and ‘Sam’ and Gordon going off to Hanover. Sam left to go back to Clarendon. It told of the attempt to sell the car at Ironshore and the discussion with the witness, Tomlin o/c Meyer. In the night he heard news on the radio about the people who had gone to a dance and were missing along with the motorcar. The next day he took a vehicle to Clarendon. Three days after, he said, he saw Sam and Issy (Gordon) at Rocky Point and “me sey to dem, oonu get me in a trouble now, so what happen to the people dem? Him get vex sey me go wey left dem a Montego Bay and say me a gwaan like me a idiot, cause him kill two and Issy kill one and dem nah fret so whey me a fret fah, if me murder nobody.”

The judge and jury heard from the cautioned statements the graphic details of the night of horror those three young people had undergone before their lives were taken from them, even as they pleaded for mercy. It was the evidence of one of the investigating officers that as the car headed back to the border of Manchester/St Elizabeth, with the frightened girls begging all the way not to be treated like Williams – to spare their lives – at a lonely spot at Gutters, the car stopped. The girls were stripped of their clothing.

“The night did cold; the girl dem did ah tremble an’ ah beg we nuh fe kill dem,” one of the accused was alleged to have said. But it was clear the pleas fell on deaf ears.

The car was later found abandoned in the Faith’s Pen area of St Catherine. It was unlocked, tyres punctured and with the keys still in the ignition.

Meanwhile, as the investigations by police drawn from Manchester, Montego Bay, St James, Clarendon and CIB headquarters in Kingston intensified in those agonising weeks before the breakthrough in the case, the Williams family had offered a reward of $100,000 for information concerning the fate of their son and his two female companions.

Racquel Fearon was just short of her 15th birthday by one month when the tragic incident occurred and, according to her father, Renny Fearon, she was awaiting transfer from Lennon High School in Mocho to Vere Technical.

His grief was overwhelming as he recalled that “Rajhnie (a close friend of the two girls) ” and Georgia came to the house and asked me if Racquel could come to the dance with them. I told them it was up to her because she was to go to a play in May Pen.”

He said that Williams picked up his daughter at 14 Paradise Street, May Pen, around 8.20 p.m. on October 23, 1993 and he never saw his daughter alive again.

Pamela Bogle of Fernleigh Avenue, May Pen, described Georgia, whom she said had been her only daughter as a very caring person. She testified that her daughter had been employed at a plastic factory in May Pen and her tragic death had left her “distraught”.

The mother of Rajhnie Williams – Curdell Williams of May Pen, Clarendon – was so overcome with grief in the course of her testimony that she had to be escorted from the courtroom in order for her to regain her composure.

The court heard from Assistant Superintendent Morris of the Montego Bay Police Station that Fletcher was apprehended on November 21, 1993 and taken to his office. He was cautioned and told he was a suspect in the murder of Rajhnie Williams. Fletcher denied having anything to do with it. He was, however, interrogated by Morris, whereupon Fletcher reportedly said: “lf me tell yuh ’bout de murder, Sam wi kill me.” He indicated that he wished to make a statement, which was recorded by Detective Sergeant Bowen in the presence of Lopez James, a Justice of the Peace for the parish of St James. The statement was later handed over to Superintendent Levi Campbell, officer in charge of crime.

On the following day about 9:00 am, Detective Sergeant Daley gave evidence that he went to Gutters where he saw Fletcher in the custody of Assistant Superintendent Morris who, he said, handed over Fletcher to him. Superintendent Campbell was present; he cautioned Fletcher and asked him if he could show them where they took the two girls who were taken from Lionel Town in Clarendon. Fletcher pointed in the direction of Alligator Pond and said: ” somewhere down so; I don’t remember where.”

On November, 24, 1993 Detective Sergeant Daley told the court further that he took Fletcher who was in custody at the Mandeville police lock up to the office of Superintendent Campbell who cautioned him. Fletcher said: “All a what me tell them a MoBay a lie. Me want to tell you the truth now.”

Consequently, according to the witness, a cautioned statement was taken in writing from Fletcher and witnessed by Trevor Williams, Justice of the Peace.

Sometime later, Gordon was taken to Gutters and then in the direction of Alligator Pond. Superintendent Campbell then cautioned Gordon and asked him where were the bodies of the girls? Gordon replied: “Dem over there,” pointing towards a cow pasture. As directed by Gordon they found human bones and clothes scattered all over the place. A human skull was also found. The clothing was identified as that worn by Racquel Fearon and Georgia Shaw on the fatal night.

At the close of the prosecution’s case, Fletcher, in sworn testimony from the witness box, denied having anything to do with the murders; he also denied telling Burgess anything about “jucking” down anyone. He claimed he was innocent.

Following the summing up by the judge, both accused were found guilty of capital murder in respect of Williams, Fearon and Shaw.

Fletcher who was defended by Lord Anthony Gifford, QC at trial, was sentenced to hang for the murders. His appeal was argued by attorney Ian Wilkinson (later president of the Jamaican Bar Association).

Gordon, who was also convicted of the murders, was ordered by the judge to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure because he was under the age of 18 when the offences were committed. He was defended by Margaret MacCaulay, QC at trial but his appeal before the Court of Appeal was argued by Dennis Morrison, QC (now judge of the Court of Appeal).

An appeal was lodged to the Court of Appeal following conviction and sentence and in May, 1998, that court comprising the late President Carl Rattray, QC; Justice U D Gordon (deceased) and Justice Bingham (retired) dismissed the appeals.

But whereas in respect of Whyette Gordon, a barber, of Rocky Point, Justice Walker had ordered that he (Gordon) should not be released from detention until a minimum of 30 years had passed, the Court of Appeal said in its judgment, that the judge was in error in that regard, because the provision in the Offences against the Person Act was not applicable to the sentence imposed on a juvenile under section 29(1) of the Juveniles Act. The court said the appropriate sentence with respect to Gordon consequent to his age was that he be detained during her Majesty’s pleasure.

The court also set aside the verdicts of capital murder in respect of the men and substituted non-capital murder because the court said that capital murder did not arise on the evidence. The court said the attack which caused the death of all three persons was the shooting of them by Edwey Watson, also known as ‘Sam’ and “Deportee” who was arrested and charged with the murders; and, after the hearing of the preliminary inquiry, he escaped custody and was killed in a shoot-out with the police.

However, because the convictions of the two men were in respect of multiple murders done on the same occasion, the court, in its judgment, confirmed the death sentence imposed by Justice Walker on Fletcher.

Still persistent, Fletcher later appealed to the United Kingdom Privy Council against his conviction and sentence and in January, 1999, that Court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the conviction and sentence of death.

Next week: Baker accused of the burning death of his wife and two infant daughters

Sybil E Hibbert is a veteran journalist and retired court reporting specialist. She is also the wife of Retired ACP Isadore ‘Dick’ Hibbert, rated among the top Jamaican detectives of his time.